Edmonton Lean Startup Circle

Or take the neighborhood UPS Store in NJ that routinely ships custom fresh sandwiches across the country in time for lunch, with fees approaching $80 (for shipping alone; sandwiches are billed separately). Who ships a sandwich from a different time-zone? How are the sandwiches? While we never quite got to the bottom of that first question, we did (1) confirm that the sandwiches are excellent, and (2) get to observe the complex web of mutual accommodation — including custom packaging, billing, systems integration, and tracking — that had developed like a vast and ornate coral reef between the sandwich shop and the shipping store, giving new meaning to the word Logistics.

Or the exploration of evolving consumer attitudes toward all things Green that we filmed recently. Alongside the well-documented gap between people's green values and their actual behavior, we began to see a shadow-gap along gender lines — an apparent discomfort among men, even those who, by temperament, age, or social context, were best positioned to embrace green. And then it hit us, as we watched a young man in SF rifle diffidently through his cloth shopping bags: the iconic symbol of green — the canvas tote — is essentially a purse. How many men will want to advertise greenness if it means carrying a purse? In this respect, Green is in danger of becoming the new pink, and we owe it to the planet and to green brands everywhere to give the movement an equal opportunity badge.

I share these stories for two reasons. First, because you can't make this stuff up, thus demonstrating how much more fun it is to discover truths (sincerely) than to invent them (however cunningly). And second, because the trumpeting of all that's new and shiny in our business mustn't drown out the fundamentals guiding the best work in any medium: what we might call experience-near insights, gathered by market researchers in earnest pursuit of the truth about what people are feeling, experiencing, and creating out in the world today.

If we get that right, we've got the best — maybe the only — shot at developing communications that will actually matter to client brands and the people who love them.

Then he said the thing that was THE THING: You can do a hedge fund anytime, why do it now? Well thanks Dad, for the vote of confidence (more like “holy fuck you think I could raise hundreds of millions of dollars in this economy!?”), but what do I do with that?

He continued to explain that creating a hedge fund, or any kind of fund, was something i should be thinking about in my 40s or 50s when I wanted a more traditional role in finance with a lower risk/reward profile.

My family is upper middle class, but as service providers to the very wealthy I’ve learned some valuable things about money, at a much younger age than I otherwise would.

It has changed how I approach people with money, for better or for worse. I expect this will have an interesting impact on my ability to raise funding for my company (and I’m not saying all positive here):

“Yes but what do we sell?”

“We sell trust, honey,” he smiles. “We’re honest people just like the steel workers, union laborers, and employees these companies serve. We help them keep their promises.”

A series of deaths in my family in the past couple years have made me more aware of mortality than I ever was before. My Dad pointed out, as we discussed the hedge fund business, that it was something I could do without actually leaving a chair. Move to New York, get a Blackberry, iPhone and 3-line desk phone and I could operate from anywhere.

But I would never be able to recapture, at 50, the energy of being 25. My Dad had me when he was 28. To him, I am so early in my life (I’m 27 now… this post reflects on a convo 2 years ago).

Staring down Demo Day, I hold this conversation in my mind. Have some balls, Elle. I’m pretty sure that’s what he was trying to say.

Chamath said that, when he was running the growth team at Facebook, he focused on four things: Acquisition: how to acquire users. Activation: how to get users to their ‘Aha’ moment as quickly as possible Engagement: how to ensure users experience the core product value as often as possible Virality: how to get people to get more people onto the platform

He said there had been a tendency in growth teams he was aware of to measure the time to the “Aha” moment in days. His view is that it should be measured in hours, and ideally minutes and seconds. The idea is that a user should get an “Aha” moment as soon as humanly possible after signing up.

Sean likes using a pop-up or other survey tool to ask people 'How disappointed would you be if [your product] wasn't available anymore?' on a scale ranging from 'not at all disappointed' to 'extremely disappointed' to identify your MHUs (they'll answer very or extremely disappointed).

You can ask these identified MHUs 'What is the primary benefit you receive from [your product]' (as an open-ended question to start, then after getting ~30 responses, you should be able to narrow it down to 3 multiple choice answers).

4. Getting people to your MHXOnce you understand your MHX, you can then maximize the percentage of people that reach this point. This means identifying points of friction and reducing that friction (Sean suggested watching people use your product, and then A/B testing based on insights gained), focus on what a real conversion looks like, building channels to increase user habits/increase revenues/drive sales/etc., and understand intent by A/B testing your messaging and hooks. You need to obsessively optimize everything that is part of this newly formed growth engine.

You need to engage with your users, and take those insights to come up with new, breakthrough ideas.